Tim Suermondt

NATHAN ROAD

The mops in the alleyway…….today hang differently
than they did yesterday—no two…….ways the same, unpredictable
as life itself. Workers get some…….satisfaction in the lounging
on orphaned chairs of white, yellow…….blue and pink, paradises
but for the briefest of moments.……..On the congested main road
The fish balls are dancing, a model…….from the Mainland makes certain
everyone notices her long legs, her…….mouth hushed about the politics—
a teenager lights a cigarette, a kitchen…….cook joins in and someone’s cheap
but revered pair of pants parachutes….,,.from the clothesline forty stories
high, landing on a grime covered mini….,,.statue of the Buddha smiling, smiling
through his stoicism he cannot change.…….What must the mops be thinking?

Tim Suermondt is the author of three full-length collections of poems: Trying To Help The Elephant Man Dance (The Backwaters Press, 2007), Just Beautiful (New York Quarterly Books, 2010) and Election Night And The Five Satins (Glass Lyre Press, 2016). His fourth full-length collection The World Doesn’t Know You was published by Pinyon Publishing in late 2017, and his fifth book Josephine Baker Swimming Pool will be released in 2018 by MadHat Press. He has poems published in Poetry, The Georgia Review, Ploughshares, Prairie Schooner, Blackbird, Bellevue Literary Review, North Dakota Quarterly, december magazine, Plume Poetry Journal,Poetry East and Stand Magazine (England), among others. He is a book reviewer for Cervena Barva Press and a poetry reviewer for Bellevue Literary Review. He lives in Cambridge (MA) with his wife, the poet Pui Ying Wong.